The pandemic has transformed public transit. Seemingly overnight, agencies faced the monumental challenge of maintaining service when the rest of their communities shut down. They’ve been transporting essential workers to their jobs, keeping riders safe from contamination, and adapting to fluctuating conditions — and doing so with no clear understanding of what is to come.

COVID-19 has been a wake-up call for many in the public transit world. The struggle has been very real to make rapid changes while still maintaining reliability, and old-school technology has certainly been an impediment to this. The pandemic has accelerated the need for more modern transit software, but by and large, agencies still rely on decades-old technology to keep millions of people moving through our cities.

As we look to emerge from the pandemic, with vaccines now in sight, the transit community is reflecting on the learnings from the last 12 months. It’s clear that digital, cloud-based technology will be a key part of the journey to build back better with smarter and more future-ready mobility infrastructures.

Swiftly is redefining public transit

Since we launched Swiftly over five years ago, our products have demonstrated how big data and powerful software can empower agencies to offer more efficient and reliable transit. As a result, we have seen rapid growth over the past several years, with sales doubling in the last year alone. We now serve 90+ cities across eight countries touching over 5,500 agency staff. And perhaps most importantly, we’ve been able to measure meaningful improvements in overall transit service performance across our agency partners, improving transit for over 1.6 billion passenger trips per year.

As we look forward, there has never been more urgency to help our public transit agency partners to be more agile and responsive to the new normal we live in. That’s why I am thrilled to announce that Swiftly has received a significant strategic investment from JMI, with participation from SHAKTI, and continued support from current investors, including Renewal Funds, Via ID, Aster Capital, and Wind Capital.

JMI is a top-tier growth equity investment firm with over $4B in committed capital and significant expertise in SaaS & govtech. They share our vision that reliable, efficient, and safe public transit is essential for cities in the future, and that next-generation software is a critically important component of that story. With their support, we plan to rapidly accelerate the development of our industry-leading big data platform, nearly double our team, and expand our platform to support hundreds of transit agencies and operators around the world.

“Swiftly’s cloud platform empowers public transit agencies to transform mobility operations for the future. We are excited to partner with Jonny, his impressive team, and Swiftly’s other investors to help accelerate the digital transformation and growth of mass transit systems globally.” —Brian Hersman, General Partner, JMI Equity

We’re excited about our partnership with JMI because we believe we have found the best long-term partner for us — one that shares our culture, our values, and our vision for the future of public transit. With this new investment, we now have the resources to double down on our mission to make cities move efficiently.

While 2020 has been a challenging year for everyone, our public transit partners have been hit harder than most. We believe that public transit is essential for any city, and now with this new investment, we have the resources to help improve our transit networks, and we’re committed to support our agency partners for the long term.